1995: 'We had the weapons to win it'

Andrew Mehrtens and the All Blacks played a strong, simple game during the 1995 tournament.
Photo / Getty Images

After the extraordinary extra-time conclusion to the 1995 World Cup, Andrew Mehrtens altered the pin number on his cashflow card to 1215.

He did it to remember the feeling, not to dwell on it but to respect the disappointment of that outcome for New Zealand, himself and his teammates.

"Sometimes I can be flippant but it was not about being negative. I wanted to move on, we all had to, but I still wanted to respect the emptiness we had and the country felt. I wanted a sobering reminder," he recalls.

"It didn't do me any good though at the '99 tournament, so I biffed it."

The 1995 World Cup is infamous. The All Blacks over-achieved in the rugby world's expectations while Mehrtens and his mates knew they were capable of winning and fell short.

"I've put it to bed, but there are guys in the team who have never watched a replay. The biggest disappointment was feeling you had let the country down and the team but that is the danger of playing sport I guess.

"We gave it our all and had the game and the weapons to win it. We were very conscious of the people in New Zealand who were watching in the middle of the night.

"At least we were able to raise our spirits some weeks later with a test win against the Wallabies in Sydney and that gave us some relief rather than having the result hang over us through the summer like subsequent All Black sides."

Mehrtens was no certainty to go to that World Cup. He had only played one season for Canterbury, missed the start of the Super 10 and the inter-island match but played for Harlequins against Waikato.

Then he was picked for the All Blacks to play Canada with Graeme Bachop, Walter Little and Frank Bunce around him.

When they arrived in South Africa, the All Blacks were fifth favourites behind England, South Africa, France and Australia.

Jonah Lomu made the side, convincing Laurie Mains et al he was a strong investment. After the first game, Lomu-mania went into overdrive as opponents lined up four or five guys against him.

"The tournament went by in a bit of a blur for me," Mehrtens says. "Ireland came at us hard but then we found teams could not stay with us. I just chucked the ball out for the others to do their magic and kicked some goals. It was great fun as we played a strong, simple style."

When the All Blacks reached the semifinal against England, Mehrtens was late for the captain's meeting the night before the test. It was not a good start. Fitzpatrick was grumpy and Mehrtens knew that the side's loss in '93 still grated because of the attitude shown by the English media and officials.

The All Blacks could tell from Fitzpatrick and Zinzan Brooke they had a score to settle, there was a personal edge.

"Everything went our way, Jonah got the ball early and we were leading 25-3 at the interval. The power of the man was amazing, but it was also his speed, his agility and balance.

"He had some beautiful skills, moves and offloads. I hope that is not forgotten about him."

When the All Blacks got to extra time in the final against the Springboks, Mehrtens thought back to the work they had done over summer.

The further they went in the tournament the more confident they felt about their chances.

"We got ahead in extra time and then things started to go awry. Every time we got to their end, Andre Joubert or Joel Stransky kicked them back to halfway.

"When you look back on it, maybe it was not meant to be. What worked for us so well during the tournament was not going so well because the Boks, from 1 to 15, threw everything including their mothers' bodies on the line to make a tackle.

"Jonah did not get enough space and maybe we were too predictable with our attack. They were very conscious of the threat from him. Japie Mulder was enormous and Hennie Le Roux was swept up in it too.

"We had a game which had worked for us all tournament. We had to decide whether to persevere with that, thinking they would crack or we would bust them, or change, but to what?

"We had to trust our gameplan, try and perform it better and hope for a slice of luck. We came off and perhaps thought we had not fired all the bullets we had."

Famously, a stomach illness swept through the squad. Mehrtens had been the first to succumb after kicking practice on the Thursday. He vomited bright yellow bile and was put in isolation by Dr Mike Bowen.

He woke the next morning, struggled to a team meeting and found no one there. Eventually the players gathered and went to a local park and lay in the shade.

"The standard line is I'm never going to say nothing happened. Whether it was sinister or bad luck I'm not sure; I'm never going to say nothing happened or that it cost us the match.

"We got to the game still feeling confident, we got through 80 minutes and staring down the extra 20 minutes, I thought we were okay.

"It was the most dramatic game I have ever played in, from the jumbo plane beforehand, all the way through.

"My dropped goal near the end was close. They were not my forte and I missed four, though I got one from near touch.

"The late miss was from 28 metres nearly in front, Joost van der Westhuizen got a bit of a flyer from a ruck and put a lot of pressure on. As soon as I hit it I knew it was away to the right, it slewed off and missed by about seven or eight metres.

"The whole day was stunning. We had the game and the weapons to win but came up short."